What Are You Really?

The most gracious work of God that occurs for the developing believer is the realization he is inconsequential.  His knowledge base is minuscule.  His benefit to others is minimal, if not harmful.  His goodness is impoverished.  It is then that God can do something with him.  Abraham finally threw his hands up after the Ishmael mess and realized he and his wife had no idea what they were doing.  Jacob in all his brilliance couldn't make out Leah from Rachel and Moses thought killing an Egyptian foreman would turn things around for the Hebrews.  The perfect mess is just a mess unless we get at the main thing in life.  We are nothing but a developing corpse if Jesus Christ is not working His way through us.  The silence of God won't last but it will continue long enough until we grip hard on the absurdity of leaving our Lord out of what we do.  God may have shown you something at one time but you let it pass.  He may have pushed you toward something but you turned away.  Jesus had one purpose in life, to do the will of the Father.  Nothing distracted Him from it and as a result, at each point He knew what to do.  Do you know what to do?  Do you know what the Father is doing with you?  You can avoid the place where God developed your course or you can return to it and do the one thing you know He wants you to do.  It is up to you; the Lord won't make it easy on you by manipulating your thoughts or backing you into a corner.  You must decide the Lord is LORD and then turn into Him.  As you do, you might have to abandon some long standing belief of yours or an important person's view of you but do it today.  Do it now.  As the Lord works His way through you, He will work His way out of you and you will be like sparkling ice water in a thirsty land; you will be a well from which living water flows. It may be startling  the ways in which God refreshes and transforms lives through you.

Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.  John 7:38 NIV

The Unseen Line

At what point do we cross an unseen line when we no longer hold our things but they instead hold us?  Nothing confounds the Christian quite as much as the tight grip some desire or want maintains even as he sees himself free and on his own.  We sometimes mistake disappointment over not having with careless indifference to the thing.  Children play the game easily and we see through the charade.  "Oh, I didn't want do that anyway", they strut after the privilege is taken from them.  "I never did like her", is mumbled when the friend turns to someone else.  Yet are we so free of treasures on earth that we can happily disengage from them if the Lord breaks their grip?  Can we say farewell to the career if God were to call us to a mission field?  Are we really able to go wherever He leads even if it means leaving behind that home and car?  What is the price that is too steep to pay to follow Jesus?  Is it the respect you have gained or the comfort you enjoy?  How closely allied are you to the philosophy of the rich young ruler?  No dawn shines quite as brightly as the beginning of a day filled with the wonder of following Christ without thought for what it might cost you.